Use 'The Golden Compass' as a teaching moment

Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra and Daniel Craig as Lord Asriel in the film version of Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass. Photo by Laurie Sparham, courtesy of New Line Cinemas.

Posting Note: Last week, I rang up Asbury College English professor and Chronicles of Narnia scholar Devin Brown to chat about The Golden Compass. He had some interesting things to say, and I will post about that Sunday.

Protecting your children is a natural reflex for parents.

Sometimes it can be a clear and present physical danger, though often, it’s more of psychological threat that has Mom or Dad covering their offsprings’ eyes and ears. So it is somewhat understandable that some Christian parents wanted to get Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy of books out of their children’s reach when they heard things like the books and movie of the first book, The Golden Compass, had an atheist agenda and the heroes kill God, or a god, later in the series.

But the whole episode, which has included some schools pulling the books from their shelves and proposed boycotts of the movie, has me humming a tune by contemporary Christian singer and songwriter Derek Webb. He’s a provocative artist in Christian circles, and one of his songs, A New Law, addresses people who don’t want to think for themselves. He sings: “Don’t teach me about/ Truth and beauty/ Just label my music.”

Or ban books, or run movies out of town.

Here’s another idea: Why don’t we raise critical thinkers?

Now, I’m not saying Pullman or anyone else controversial comes out any better this way. In fact, they could come out worse. Growing up an evangelical Christian kid in the 1980s, I had friends whose parents shielded them from the world and ones who didn’t. In general, it seemed most of the kids who were cloistered through high school were shocked when they entered adulthood and weren’t really sure how to engage with a culture that didn’t fit their narrow perceptions.

Entering my fifth decade, one of my firmest beliefs is the strongest faith is one that’s been challenged.

My mom never shielded me from much of anything. But there was a culture in our family of thinking about what we saw and heard and forming our own reactions to it based on our beliefs and perceptions. In my junior high school years, I remember regular chats with my brother-in-law about song lyrics when I started listening to Simon & Garfunkel and the The Beatles — yes, it was the 80s, but I was a bit of a throwback.

I didn’t realize it then, but what was being developed was an ability to cast a critical eye on the culture around me. When I began engaging culture on my own, I would reflexively think, “What is this saying? What do I think about that? What do I believe? How should I react?”

That’s what I fear is being lost when people start talking about yanking books off library shelves and boycotting movies, like they are with The Golden Compass.

The His Dark Materials trilogy centers on the conflict between an authoritarian group called the Magesterium and an independent group led by a 12-year-old girl named Lyra and her uncle Asriel. The Magisterium practices thought control through torture and murder, among other methods. Many readers have read the Magisterium as a thinly disguised Catholic Church and perceive the entire series as designed to undermine Christianity and organized religion in general.

That’s one way to interpret it, just like Christian allegory is a way to take The Chronicles of Narnia. Or you can just think of it as a fantasy about the struggle between good and evil.

And though the film version’s Magisterium looks pretty darned Catholic in their robes and cathedral-like offices, it could also be interpreted as any other type of authoritarian entity, be it a government or educational institution. If your church really does conduct itself like the Magisterium, you might want to think twice about where you worship. I’d like to think anywhere I worship would be one of the first to oppose an organization like the Magisterium.

When churches and other groups start calling for bans and boycotts, they are frankly playing into the profile of the Magisterium, because like that group, they are actively suppressing thought and creativity.
I want my children to think of these things. They are, of course, going to get a good dose of what my wife and I believe during this “captive audience” stage of our lives. But if they don’t learn to think for themselves, I don’t think I’ve done my job as a parent.

My daughter saw The Golden Compass with me and is reading the trilogy’s second book, The Subtle Knife, now, in part because if the stories interest her, I am eager to discuss them with her. What meaning does she find in it? What are her perceptions about the characters and stories and how do they relate to our world? What sorts of questions does she have?

Developing those skills in our kids, we arm them to engage in a world that will come to them with a wide variety of messages and ideas. We protect them against people who would prefer to do the thinking for them, when we teach them to think for themselves.

Comments

[Mercurie]

Well said. I have always been opposed to banning books or records or any other medium for precisely these reasons. After all, if one's beliefs are so weak that a single book or record album or movie can hurt them, then what does that say about those beliefs?

[Curt]

Rich, you are right on the money. Thanks for your wise thoughts. So good to hear these mature perspectives in a public forum like this. To often those on the extremes get all the press and the public gets a mistaken view of what the faith is all about. Thanks.